


Draw Four

by Distraktion



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Cards, Cauldron Game Night, Friendship, Gen, UNO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:34:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27106546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Distraktion/pseuds/Distraktion
Summary: Sure, some games are about winning and losing, but it's also possible to win even when you lose. What matters are the lessons you take from the game itself, and the Path you take to get there.
Kudos: 11
Collections: play stupid games win stupid prizes





	Draw Four

**Author's Note:**

> Rewrote this, and now it's a lot more like the sort of thing I write. Certainly makes me feel better, anyway. Apologies to anyone who read that mess that was in here before, and thanks to all who politely pointed out what was wrong with it.

“Keith? Are you making a move or what?”

One of the worst things about working for a clandestine shadow organization that ruled the world (multiple worlds, really) was that it was hard to know where the line between lies and truth was. Trust was a commodity, one with value greater than any material on any world, and sometimes it was hard to know when it was being fairly-

“Hey!” A hand slapped down on the table, and Keith nearly dropped his cards as he was pulled out of his deep thoughts about trust and honesty. He looked around the table, starting with the one beside him who had slapped the table. David looked concerned. “We’re waiting, buddy.”

“Sorry, I was thinking about something.” Keith looked through his cards, grimaced, and then dropped a card on the pile. As if to show Keith how it was done, David immediately did the same, and then they both looked to Rebecca. She sat silently, staring at Contessa. “Um...Becky? It’s your turn now.”

Rebecca ignored him, not even letting out a puff of breath to blast him out of his chair like she normally did when he called her  _ Becky _ . She just kept staring, and eventually Contessa gave a little shrug. Whatever signal had passed between the two of them went over Keith’s head, as many things did, and soon another card was on the table.

Doctor Mother was next, though she had asked them all to call her something different tonight. The implacable leader was wearing a little nametag with the letters  _ DM _ on them, and had asked everyone to call her that. Nobody had taken up the offer, leading the woman to mutter something about how she “Really thought she had it this time.” 

Eventually, after a full minute of nobody addressing her by her self-appointed nickname, Doctor Mother slapped down a card and looked away from them all with a huff.

Sitting next to Keith, on his left, was Contessa. She glanced at him, then made a strange little face that she often used when her Path was telling her to do something strange. She’d promised not to use her powers tonight, since it was their first Game Night and cheating would set a bad precedent, so Keith knew that couldn’t be it. Eventually she let out a little sigh and put a hand on Keith’s shoulder.

“Keith, are you having fun, tonight?” She asked, a warmth in her voice that was so unlike her as to immediately raise his hackles. He resisted shrugging her hand off, and instead just gave a smile his PR team had told him warmed hearts and minds alike (whatever that meant) as he nodded. She continued, “Do you enjoy spending time with us?”

“Of course! I’m glad we finally get to do things together besides meet in dark rooms, fight the monsters that David might have created or woken up, and make convoluted plans.” He laughed, trying not to think about the words he was saying and how much they would have made him want to throw up several years ago. “I’m really glad you guys suggested it.”

“Good, I think we all enjoy spending time with you, as well.” Contessa nodded, her smile widening just a fraction, and then she put down a card. “Your turn.”

Feeling emboldened by the warmth between his teammates...no, friends, Keith boldly put down a card. Just as David was about to play his card, Keith startled and called out, “Uno!”

A change came over Rebecca, and for a moment she wasn’t sitting around a table with her oldest friends and playing a fun game for ages five and up. She was suddenly in the middle of a life-and-death battle with the same stripy monster that had plucked her eye out. Worst of all, both of her eyes (the real and the fake one) were locked on Keith, and she smiled.

“Reverse.” She stated, with finality that made Keith’s blood chill. The green Reverse card thundered down onto the table, covering the green 6 that David had used before her.

Keith’s eyes dragged to David, but the man was already in motion. There was a particular glee in his expression as he intoned, “Wild Draw Four, Keith. New color is...blue.”

Keith told himself that it was just part of the game, that they were getting into the spirit of things, and so he kept his face impassive as he drew four cards. They were all red, and it was with a heavy heart that he drew another three cards before finding a blue 3 to play.

His heart sank like Kyushu as Contessa dropped a blue 7 and Doctor Mother a blue Reverse...and then Contessa threw down a Wild Draw Four and declared Yellow.

Keith’s hand was up to twenty cards by the time he could continue, and he knew that victory was out of his reach. As they went around the table, everyone made little jokes and japes, all refusing to look at him as their hands shrunk quickly. He did the best he could, eventually getting down to the single digits, but the damage was done.

Eventually, Rebecca put down her last card, and won.

Keith threw his remaining cards down and got up, turning to leave. Contessa’s hand on his shoulder made him stop, and he turned a baleful glare on her until she let go. Still, seeing the others all chuckling made annoyance rise in him, and he was unable to keep his mouth shut.

“The whole point of this game night was so that we could all be on even footing, so that we could come together as a team.” He held up a hand, and didn’t even need to make it glow to cut off their retorts. “I know, we’re not a team. As Doctor Mother keeps putting it, we’re ‘a secret shadow organization who seeks to save the multiverse by making tiny sacrifices that certainly won’t stack up and eventually make us worse monsters than the man we’re trying to beat.’”

They all pointedly looked at their leader, and she ignored them. Who cared what they thought, anyway? She knew that the ends would justify the means!

“I guess I just thought that you were inviting me here so we could all have fun, since I’ve been kind of busy lately. But instead it just turned into an excuse to mess with me, using a card game to prove that I’m just a-”

“Do you know why we suggested Uno, Keith?” Rebecca cut him off, and he grimaced as he heard that she was using her ‘let me talk’ voice. She pulled a few cards from the deck and flipped them to face him, and he saw they were all Draw Four. “We thought that perhaps you would see the philosophical underpinnings of the game itself.”

“You sat here with your four closest friends, playing a game of chance and chaotic randomness, but still bound with certain rules.” David spoke, fiddling with his mask on the table in front of him. He seemed oddly quiet for once, not smirking or messing with Keith. “It may have been a game, but in a way it was also analogous to life itself.”

“You were forced to take four new cards into your hand, unable to do anything but deal with them.” Doctor Mother took over now, a small smile on her face as she crossed the room and stood beside the others, all four of them standing in a line. “Over and over, as your hand changed, you did your best to deal with problems...but alone it was impossible. With all four of us against you, failure was the only possibility...and I'm sure more than once you wondered how you'd do if even one of us was helping you.”

“Sure, you lost in the end, but that was just a game. A game you were playing with friends. No powers, no tricks, but a group of people who saw you as an equal. Who care about you.” Contessa held out a card to him, and then blushed as he stared at her. Finally, she sighed, “We apologize for the duplicity, but we've been trying to get through to you for months now, and for some reason my Path told me that this card game would be the thing to do it. Even now, I'm sure that memories are flowing through your brain...”

Keith stared at her, at all of them, and then details from the last few weeks began to filter in…

_ Walking in on Doctor Mother and David as they played chess, inviting him to join them...but he was too busy. _

_ Coming across Alexandria as he flew cross-country, and shaking his head when she offered to escort him. _

_ Contessa running into him after a small spat with Arthur, asking if he wanted to talk about it. _

_ All four of them agreeing to this game night, without complaint, and acting excited for it. _

“Wait. Are you saying that...you made a Path to try and make me feel better?” He spun and looked at Contessa, and she suddenly found her shoes very interesting for some reason. He cast a glance to the others, and found them all just as distracted. “All four of you? What, because I was working too hard, and spending too much time on other things?”

“Kurt ran an analysis on your health, and found that you were heading for either a breakdown or a heart attack within 3-7 years.” David muttered, and Doctor Mother elbowed him. He glared at her and stepped away, then held out a hand. “Look, I know we don’t always get along, but...we’re all on the same team here, man. You’ve got a lot on your plate? Let us help you.”

“We may not all agree one every matter, and certainly our methods are going to cause friction.” Rebecca stated, shuffling the deck of cards perfectly and then holding up one of each color. “But just like a game of Uno, every color has a purpose and every player has a chance to win. Working together, the five of us will win...and without you by our side we might not.”

Keith stood there, staring at each of them in turn, and saw what he’d missed before.

Contessa was waiting, her face in that ‘Path’ expression. She knew this was for the best, but at the same time he was struck by how she’d used her power not to save lives or fight a golden man...but to find a way to help him.

David, for all his jokes and insults, was looking at him earnestly now. His hand was still held out, his smile slowly quivering as he worried about this overture failing, and his powers (which could have easily fixed all this) not engaged at all.

Rebecca was, for once, not a statue with an expression of boredom or annoyance. Now it was a small smile on her face, one that brought him hope. He knew that she could have put a perfect smile on her face, but instead this was a small quirk of the lips, an attempt to be not-perfect.

Finally, Doctor Mother wasn’t looking at any clocks or reading papers from her pocket. For once, her entire being was focused entirely on him. She looked worried about him, and that was...powerful.

He sighed, shaking his head...a smile on his face.

“How about we play another game, one that I know the rules for a bit better?” He finally took David’s hand, the other man letting out a little whoop of joy and pumping his other fist. The four of them took seats at the table, and Keith went to his duffel bag in the corner to root around. “I learned this one from one of the Wards, out in San Francisco last week. It’s pretty fun.”

The others looked at him oddly as he returned with a deck of 52 cards, wondering why he was just standing there shuffling them and grinning. The man had no power face to speak of, so whatever he was going to do was-

“52 Card Pickup!” Keith shouted, throwing the cards at the ceiling and then lifting into the air. With a gusto they hadn’t seen in him in weeks, he began to dart around in the air and grab cards. “Most cards wins! Go!”

Rebecca and David were in the air within moments, Contessa frowned as her Path told her she had already lost, and Doctor Mother whined about how unfair this game was for non-powered people.

Within minutes, they had added a dozen more decks to the game, given their leader a jetpack that used to belong to Hero, and taken it out into a larger room.

That night, before drifting off to sleep, Keith told Arthur he could hardly wait for the next Game Night.

As happy as Keith was, Arthur couldn’t wait either.


End file.
